Slashdot Mirror
Gmail in the News
roadies writes "Despite all the negativity and privacy concerns that surround Gmail, it has still gained cult-like status where net-d0rks feel self validated by having a gmail address and will do anything to get one. Services like the Gmail Machine, a randomized Gmail lotto that has people hitting refresh until they get carpel-tunnel in the index finger, reports over 7 million pageviews (though, definitely not uniques) in 3 days and 55 invites given away. They just added 222 more through donators who have given up invites in exchange for a text link on the high-traffic site. GmailSwap (covered recently on /.) has given away everything from cameras to good vibes. Good news for hardpressed geeks: The invites are becoming more and more available and mainstream. Ebay once had gmail invites going for a couple hundred dollars. Now, nobody is bidding on them anymore, so you can purchase one the old-fashioned eBay way for a dollar or two." Reader marklyon writes "Third party developers have stepped in with utilities that enhance and improve GMail. One utility, Mbox
& Maildir to Gmail Loader allows users to upload their existing email to
their GMail account. Another, POP
Goes the GMail, offers the ability to access your GMail account with any POP
mail reader, giving users the ability to permanently archive messages. GTray
lives in your taskbar and alerts you to incoming messages. Other, more
general programs, allow you to forward your Hotmail
or Yahoo! Mail messages to your
new GMail account. The question that remains, however, is whether Google will
work with or against third party developers in GMail's future."
Initially I got a couple of invitations I could give away, every couple of weeks, and it was easy to find close friends to give them to. Then I found I had seven invitations this week and had run out of obvious candidates. I tried gmailswap, but the interesting ones (like a pound of Kona coffee) went too quickly, and the others were uninteresting to me. So I sent a note to my orkut friends, and quickly had well over a dozen requests for accounts despite including a disclaimer pointing to gmail-is-too-creepy.com :). I gave away the ones I had, and surprisingly got a few more the
very next day. I still have a queue of about 5 people I owe accounts
to.
PS. This was a really, really nice Slashdot article, with a treasure trove of gmail information. Well done.
Mencken had it right. So glad that's old news.
Yahoo now offers 100 mb to all free accounts, and 2 gigabytes to premium accounts. I love competition.
Personally I love the following:
1) It's webmail like the ORIGINAL hotmail before MS tookover. Few ads, non popups, just gets you to your business
2) Google search for your e-mail, nice and fast. Beats the hell outta Eurora and Outlook searching
3) Threaded e-mails. I sent out an e-mail to a group of 10 friends, they all responded, I responded to some, etc. It all gets stored in ONE thread.
If you're really paranoid, just PGP your messages. Granted there's no direct plugin I know of yet, but I'm sure it's about to come. Then again there's always c&p into your email.
The propensity for unencrypted emails to be read and intercepted has existed on the net, but people just ignored the possibility or figured the probability of it happening them is low.
If it bothers you there's an indefinate log of your email, encrypt it--So what if google shows you nothing by PGP ads on the right side of your screen ?
From the entry:
A worthy cause, I should think. Currently, I believe people are just looking over at gmailswap for service men and women to donate their invites to, until this 'clearinghouse' is created.
I thought some slashdotters might be willing to participate.
Voices--Art, Poetry, Photography
Please send me an email to coderman at peertech.org with your first and last name, and email address (this is for the form).
I will reply with your current position in the queue of people wanting an invite, and when I get more invitations (currently 5 every one to three days) I'll send you one.
All I ask is this:
1. Please tell me if you get invited before your turn in queue, otherwise I will waste an invitation.
2. Please don't sell this invite, or sell the invites you subsequently get from your own account.
People who sell or extort for invites lack integrity and are selfish. Don't be that kind of person.
From the Gmail Help Center:So, unless you've covered your tracks very well, don't expect to hold onto those accounts. I know of at least one case where a user who made more than one account had all his accounts shut down.
Gmail is currently in beta. Use of that beta is a priviledge, not a right, so abusing it is the quickest way to find yourself locked out.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg